Google Ads can be a powerful and super quick way of turning traffic on and getting quick results.

But, in order for it to work you need to understand how to use it and why you should be using it.

Here to tell us how to put together a simple Google Ads strategy and how to interpret your data in a way that gets you results, is Google genius Kasim Aslam…

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I think everybody looks at Google ads as though it’s one of the tools on your tool belt, but I disagree strongly.

I believe that Google is, and should be, your first line of defence. It’s the strongest way to identify intent, and in the realm of marketing I think intent is the single most important positioning in the funnel.

Intent means that a prospect has told you somehow that they want to do something, and sometimes you will have to intuit that.

For example, if my toilet is blocked I might look on Google for a D.I.Y solution but not necessarily a plumber at this point, but I have indicated that I have the intent to fix my toilet. So, if you’re a plumber that now becomes the greatest catalyst for a potential marketing conversation.

Now, I’m not saying that Google should be your only marketing strategy, but I do think that it should be your first marketing strategy.

What Google allows you to do is identify what works at the extreme bottom of your sales funnel.

The answer to this question is so simplistic, it might even piss some people off with how simple it is.

You need a 90-day ramp in order to test what you know to be the closest catalytic phrases to a purchase intent.

Let’s say you run a membership site that teaches people how to run podcasts, you’re going to think about the phrases that people would look for when joining your membership site.

Those phrases could be ‘how to start a podcast’, ‘things to know before you start a podcast’, ‘launching a podcast’, that kind of thing.

I like to use SKAG (single key phrase ad groups), you can google that and find tons of information about what it is.

A lot of people throw like 30+ phrases into a single ad group and try to test all 30 phrases as though they’re the same thing! Google is semantically obsessed, so I like to take one key phrase with maybe a few slight variations, and I bid on that and all my copy is written to that key phrase.

If you’re not willing to invest the time to test each of your key phrases separately than you’re never really going to know whether or not it worked or didn’t work.

All of your copy should match the key phrase that you are using and testing, you want to maintain a level of continuity that keeps your users buying experience consistent.

Now, you don’t need to customise and change the entire landing page each time. I’m of the opinion that you could have the same landing page but change the following elements:

The title – the very first words you see should be consistent with what you searched for.

The academic answer is that you’re supposed to optimise on a base 100 schedule, meaning you need 100 impressions before you can look at your data accurately.

Realistically though, small businesses can’t afford that, and bigger businesses don’t have the time for that.

You need to work with someone that had the experience to be able to accelerate that schedule a little bit. Someone with experience will typically know when they’ve reached a critical mass or a boiling point.

I would always start with search, because search is the primary indicator of intent, and start off with the narrowest number of key phrases you can that still have traffic.

The only time that’s not true is if you’re selling something that people won’t be looking for.

You want to get to the extreme bottom of the funnel, as close to the bottom of the funnel as you can get while there is still traffic, and that’s the apex.

That’s where you start to learn about your target market – what they’re willing to pay, willing to engage with, what resonates with them, etc.

As you learn those lessons Google will inform everything else. Your email campaigns can be influenced by your Google ad data, same with your Facebook campaigns, your press releases, everything that you put out there.

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